Note: Authored by David Menconi, this piece has been produced in partnership with Raleigh Arts. Menconi's latest book, "Oh, Didn't They Ramble: Rounder Records and the Transformation of American Roots Music," was published in the fall of 2023 by University of North Carolina Press. His podcast, Carolina Calling, explores the history of the Tar Heel State through music.

Handbell choirs and holiday music go together like NASCAR and North Carolina, so it’s no surprise that The Raleigh Ringers’ most popular performances are its annual holiday concerts. This year, the group is scheduled for Dec. 14 and 15 at downtown Raleigh’s Meymandi Concert Hall in the Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts.

Tickets for the 4pm shows are still available here.

But those in attendance will hear more than just holiday chestnuts—even at least one classic-rock standard. Changing things up with unexpected wild-card selections has always been one of the group’s long standing traditions.

“The biggest misconception about handbell choirs is that we only do church music,” says David M. Harris, founder and longtime director of the Ringers. “But we do rock and roll, too. A long time ago, we were on WRDU when they were a rock station and they were making fun of us at first when we were doing ‘Jingle Bells.’ But then we unveiled our arrangement of ‘Stairway to Heaven’ and it kind of won them over. We’ve also done ‘Bohemian Rhapsody,’ ‘Hotel California,’ ‘Nights in White Satin.’ We’ll do another one at this year’s holiday shows as our encore.”

The Ringers' program repertoire this year will have a decided lean toward rock music, with selections of heavy-metal Christmas ensemble Trans-Siberian Orchestra making up the entire first set. The second set will be mostly more traditional Christmas fare like “Sleigh Ride” and “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” (plus that classic-rock song), concluding with “Silent Night” lit by battery-powered candles in the audience.

“The Christmas shows are definitely our biggest every year,” says Harris. “A lot of the handbell world scoffs at that a little bit, saying, ‘We do things the rest of the year, too.’ But still, you can’t beat the crowds or the support you get for holiday music. So we never skip it.”

There’s been a Raleigh Ringers holiday show every year of the group’s existence, since 1990. The group’s origins go back to Raleigh’s Hudson Memorial Presbyterian Church, where Harris directed the handbell choir in the late 1980s. With some members wanting to perform more widely outside of church, the Hudson handbell choir morphed into the early version of the Ringers.

More than 80 players have passed through the group’s ranks in the decades since, with 16 to 18 members per year (two of whom have been there since the beginning). They play an array of instruments from the organization’s inventory of 514 handbells in a wide range of materials, sizes and prices—from $150 up to $7,000 each. Their rehearsal schedule is once a week, Thursday nights, and at three-and-a-half hours it’s about the length of the average Bruce Springsteen onstage marathon.

Since those early days, Raleigh Ringers have had a very fine run as a topflight handbell choir, performing in 39 states and touring as far away as Europe. Emmy-nominated for their PBS specials, the group has released two DVDs and eight albums (which can all be heard on Spotify), most recently 2022’s “Midnight Clear.”

Raleigh Ringers cover a wide range of music beyond the religious and classical standards usually associated with handbells, everything from the “Deliverance” movie theme “Dueling Banjos” to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird”. Shows are typically two-hour concerts with an intermission and post-show meet-and-greets with the players. There’s also what they call an “Instrumental Petting Zoo,” where audience members get to handle the bells.

“Just trying to turn on the next generation of new ringers to this instrument,” says Harris.

The Raleigh Ringers’ 2024 holiday concerts are Dec. 14 and 15 at Meymandi Concert Hall in downtown Raleigh’s Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts. Their PBS special “Holiday Handbells” will air at 8pm on Dec. 21 on PBSNC’s North Carolina Channel; 5pm on Dec. 25, also on the North Carolina Channel; and 10pm on Dec. 25 on PBSNC’s Explorer Channel.

^{Photos courtesy of The Raleigh Ringers}